


Dyadic

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, SGRUB, Worksafe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-05-10
Packaged: 2017-11-05 03:04:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Karkat and Sollux kill a metric ton of imps on a foray through a dungeon in LOBAF and are uncooperative jerks throughout 90% of it, up to and including while saving one another's lives. Includes plenty of banter in addition to various terrible decisions and minor regrets.<br/>Implied Terezi/Karkat and Feferi/Sollux. SFW, rated for language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Gen for the kinkmeme. This is further polished since the original, but [the original thread](http://homesmut.livejournal.com/7440.html?thread=10902544#t10902544) is still worth checking out for a moment because at the end there is SFW fanart at which I had to self-consciously peer through my fingers whilst furiously blushing.

Looking out over the sea of fire and the unnerving flying brains dotting the sparse and squishy landscape, Karkat reflects to himself that, despite the unending oceans of red he so despises, his land is perhaps not the worst sGrub has to offer. It surprises him a little that Sollux appears not to be bothered by the surroundings, sleeping on a cushioned mat set directly over the hot brain matter. His mouth is curved in a faint moue of displeasure, mind unprotected by sopor and likely haunted by voices, but he shows no sign of waking.

Bored already, Karkat glances back at the tremendous stone edifice of the temple behind him. It looms crookedly over the soft landscape, chipped and dusty yellow stone painted with flickering, ruddy light. The ominous aperture leading in, bedecked by a large arch shaped like a Roman numeral two, is lit by a series of torches illuminating a long hallway. For a minute Karkat sits down beside Sollux and gazes out upon the panorama of fire and dripping, floating brains. Despite his intent to let him rest a little longer, however, within five minutes he's impatiently prodding the psionic's shoulder with his index finger.

"Mmm...evening, FF," Sollux murmurs in surprisingly good humor, eyes flickering open. "You woke up way before..." He focuses on Karkat with a sudden frown. "KK? What are you doing here?"

"Oh, thanks for that glorious welcome," Karkat snaps, scowling. "Don't look so fucking elated to see me, your face might stick that way."

"Whatever," Sollux answers blearily, rubbing his bicolored eyes and groping blindly around for his glasses, his hand almost but not quite reaching far enough. Karkat watches this for a moment before finally lifting the shades from the gray, slightly gelatinous ground and placing them in his palm. "Ok, thanks," he says, wiping them off before settling them on his nose. His gaze flits up to rest on Karkat. "Where's FF?"

"Since she's one of the only ones around here with half a functioning thinkpan and not much propensity for going completely batshit crazy, I asked her to help Terezi with something."

"What?" Sollux asks, sitting up.

"Well, aren't we inquisitive today. For someone who never actually said hello to me, by the way, fuck you very much for that. Great to see you too, bro!" Sollux stares blankly at him, not rising to it. "Yeah anyway, it was some area where only girls can enter, like specifically to separate our team and test whether or not we've both leveled enough, because with its usual proclivity for mindfuckery this fucking game was aware I'd be there. And she's strong enough, actually she's strong...as strong as me, I guess. But you never know, I mean I didn't want her going in alone so I wanted to make sure she had another girl to go with-"

"So _why_ aren't you helping her with this, again?" Sollux finally interrupts.

"Shut the fuck up!" Karkat snaps, ignoring the smirk his anger evokes. "So yeah, we're trading off until they're done with that and then we'll switch back. Basically I'm helping you with whatever inane fuckshitting quest you're on right now in revolting squishy brainland, which I guess involves this huge temple thing."

"Yeah." Sollux stands up, surveying the imposing edifice with disinterest. "Actually I think we're incredibly overleveled for this, we just need the drop from the final boss to enter another region. I probably don't need help, but I guess you can follow me around if you want."

"Wow, what an incredibly douchey way to invite me along." Karkat scowls, trying to retrieve something from his sylladex. The encrypted card lands on the brain matter, sinking in slightly with a horrific squelch. "Fuck, hold on a minute." He sits down to work on it as Sollux wanders to the edge of the brain. "Are you pissing in that fire?"

"Where else is there?" Sollux asks dryly. "It's not the land of brains and incredibly convenient load gapers, it's pretty much brains or fire. My ultimate quest is actually to put out this whole planet with the sheer force of my piss, check it out." Karkat ignores him, still working at the card, and when Sollux returns he begins to decrypt yet more feverishly. "Eheheh, you're seriously still working on that?"

"It's tough, hold on-"

"We'll be here all night. Let me do it," Sollux offers, kneeling beside him. A moment later, he cracks the card open to reveal a box of donuts.

"I almost had that cracked when you started," Karkat snaps defensively, reaching into the box.

"Was this even the card you wanted?" Sollux asks, regarding the pastries doubtfully.

"Obviously. I alchemized it before I came here," Karkat explains, eating the majority of an eclair in one bite. "You're weak enough without being malnourished."

"Eheheh, and this is really nourishing." Sollux settles down, selecting a blue-frosted pastry with red sprinkles. "Wait, did you..." he begins hesitantly, regarding the vivid colors.

"What, purposely make food with the two ugly colors you like?" Karkat asks blandly, wiping cream off his chin and starting in on the second eclair as he gazes out over the rolling hills of brain. "Because you have retarded hangups about colorful food and otherwise you'll just pick at it like a dipshit and hardly eat anything?" he continues, mouth full. Sollux stares at him, still holding the donut. "No," he concludes, swallowing. "Weird coincidence."

"Sounds about right." Sollux eyes him, chewing speculatively. "By the way, you suck at that encryption fetch modus," he adds informatively, retrieving a pitcher of water from his sylladex. "Exchange it with mine." Karkat looks back at him for a moment, surprised.

"Yeah," he finally says, clearing his throat and seizing the pitcher, drinking directly from it despite Sollux's disapproving glance.

* * *

"See, like I'm saying, this temple sucks. Check this shit out." Sollux throws a pink, goat-eyed imp into the heavily carved wall with a casual wave of his hand as he strides down the torch-lined hall. The creature squeals and explodes into grist immediately upon making contact with the stone. "Not even a challenge anymore," he continues lazily, impaling one six-legged, insectoid imp on the bull horns of another. Several other imps, witnessing this, scurry away with alacrity.

"What the fuck," Karkat mutters, helping harvest the grist as he walks alongside Sollux. The low, square hallway is barely large enough for two to walk abreast, and the flickering torches set sporadically in sconces along the walls barely illuminate the claustrophobic space. If the monsters were difficult, Karkat thinks, the area would be creepy, but the imps pose no challenge at all. "At least let me hit that spider one over there, you're not even letting me get close. This is boring."

"Fine," Sollux agrees with a sigh.

"Good, since-" Karkat cuts his sentence short as the final imp floats up from the floor in a psionic haze of light and hurtles toward his face in the semi-darkness, hissing through venom-dripping fangs. "Fuck!" he screams, slicing its head from its body. The venom bubbles on the floor at his feet as the monster melts into grist.

"Exciting enough for you now?" Sollux asks, grinning as Karkat rounds on him. "Eheheh, KK, you're shaking."

" _With rage!_ " Karkat objects furiously, waving a sickle. "You stupid fucking nooklicker, what if I actually got poisoned-"

"Your reflexes are good," Sollux notes, still smiling. "I don't think it could have hurt you even if I would let it. Which," he adds, "I wouldn't."

"Of course my reflexes are good, dumbass, I've been-"

"So I think that's the end of this incredibly boring hallway," Sollux interrupts, pointing to a black space beyond the torches. Predictably, the circular chamber they enter features two doors: one marked with a glowing red arch, the other with a blue.

"Fine, asshole," Karkat says irritably. "Which way are we going."

"How should I know?" Sollux responds, looking at the dark passageways. "What's the point of this temple anyway, I wasn't paying attention."

"Hell if I know," Karkat says, gazing at the red-and-blue wall etchings. "I can't read that."

"It's code." Sollux peers at a section of it, illuminating it with the steady glow of his own eyes. "It repeats. If feeling red is true, then red, and..." He mumbles for a moment, closing one eye and then the other to read both text colors as Karkat impatiently taps one toe on the stone floor. "Looks like the way we choose is determined by how I feel. Which makes sense, since the gates are colored and this game has that retarded motif of self-discovery-"

"So what you're saying is we're going to get lost and starve to death," Karkat interjects, glaring darkly at the gates.

"I know how I feel, dipshit," Sollux snaps. "Red gate."

"Wait, why red?"

"Either manic or depressive," murmurs Sollux, heading for the gate. "I feel pretty neutral, but I can _imagine_ how it would feel to be happy, so it's not depressive."

"Wait, can you just eliminate one emotion and make the other one-"

"Who gives a shit, KK?" Sollux pauses before the red gate, glancing around the chamber. "Anyone? Anyone? Because I don't."

"I mean it's going to punish us if you fuck up," Karkat retorts irritably, trying to look through the arch. Nothing meets his gaze. The passageway is not only unlit but absorbs the light cast into it, a perfect square of blackness. "And fucking up's what you're best at, so forgive me for being a little concerned."

"Whatever," Sollux sighs, waving a dismissive hand. "Let's say I'm wrong. We backtrack through maybe a fuckton of imps or a lesser boss or something and go through the other gate. Oh shit, how will we ever withstand this amazing challenge."

"That's exactly the sort of shit someone says right before something horrible happens. Way to incur the wrath of fate, that's stellar behavior from someone who's literally cursed to begin with-"

"Stop bitching, KK." Sollux vanishes into the passage, swallowed instantly by blackness.

"Wait! Oh goddamn, that's it, friendship revoked," Karkat snaps. "Friends don't fucking abandon friends in creepy brainland and yet that is exactly the base treachery I s...Sollux?" he asks suddenly, realizing that not even the psionic's glowing eyes are visible in the blackness. "Hey, come back for a minute, I can't see you." He hesitates for a moment, staring into the silent space with an increasing sense of misgiving. "You stupid bastard," he finally grates out, taking a deep breath and running into the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

"Unf," Sollux grunts as Karkat lands directly on top of his seated form in the pitch-blackness, driving him back against the stone floor and knocking the wind out of him.

"Shit," Karkat whines, driving a sharp elbow directly into the psionic's upper arm as he rolls off. "So it was a transportalizer? I can't see anything. You're okay?"

"Well I was before _that_ , fatass," Sollux says breathlessly, clutching his bruised arm as he sits back up. Karkat stands, ignoring him, and turns around to behold a wall of smooth, solid rock. Unfamiliar symbols carved upon its face glow red and blue, but even with the sensitivity of Karkat's night vision the light they emit is too faint to illuminate the new hallway, limned only by shining text that appears to float in empty space. The receding square of darkness between the walls is so complete that, as Karkat turns to gaze into it, a disquieting sense of motion overtakes him.

"I seriously can't see shit." He focuses on Sollux's faintly glowing eyes to quell the vertigo and yanks the psionic up by his arms, ignoring his hiss of protest. "Except your shiny freak eyes," he adds as he pulls Sollux's glasses down to the tip of his nose. "So, congratulations, looks like you've fucked up yet again. I'd add it to the tally except they've yet to construct anything big enough to accommodate your astonishing stupidity-"

"Shut up, KK," Sollux whispers, suddenly staring wide-eyed at the hallway.

"Oh, so now you're whispering. Scared, huh?" Karkat hisses.

"Sssh," Sollux breathes, " _they'll hear you_." Karkat turns quickly, standing close beside him, sickles clutched in nervous hands as he stares blindly down the corridor. Nothing reaches his ears but the sound of Sollux's quiet respiration and the increasing thuds of his own heart.

"Wha-" he begins to ask, but just as the sound leaves his lips something coils tight around his ankle and he shrieks in a shrill, cracking voice, slashing erratically near the floor with a sickle before falling backward. Colorful light catches him and swings him back up to his feet before he hits the ground, the psionic pressure around his leg dissipating as Sollux trembles beside him in poorly suppressed laughter.

"Eheheh," Sollux snickers openly as his eyes and hands luminesce, flooding a span of the empty hallway before him with colorful light. "Holy shit, KK, oh my _god_ you scream like a girl." He only laughs harder when Karkat shoves him against the wall, teeth bared, snarling in fury. "How many times do I have to tell you before it sinks into your thick sponge?" he continues, still grinning as Karkat's thumbs dig into his shoulders. "Nothing here can fuck with us."

"It's fucking dark and you don't know what's here," Karkat hisses, pressing the heels of his hands against Sollux's shoulder joints, trying his level best to grate the jutting bones together. "You chose the wrong door into stupid impenetrable darkness and I don't have flashlights embedded in my skull like you, you hornfondling nubslurping retarded grubfucker-"

"Whatever," Sollux sighs, pushing back until Karkat relents, still scowling furiously as he proceeds down the hall. "You don't know this is the wrong way."

"Right, I get a really good feeling about this area," spits Karkat, following Sollux as the psionic casts light from his eyes and hands. "It's so soothing."

"It's designed for me," Sollux points out, glancing back at Karkat and smirking as the smaller troll covers his eyes against the brightness. "Does it look like I'm having trouble telling where to go?" He suddenly pauses, turning to the right to reveal a second hallway that branches from the first. The glowing marks stop after only several feet, although the light Sollux casts reveals that the corridor continues with blank, uneven walls.

"Yeah," Karkat informs him smugly, tapping the stone wall with the point of one scythe. "It sort of looks exactly like that."

"Shut up," he responds irritably, turning his head to briefly illuminate both options. "Which one?"

"I think the one we're on is good," Karkat answers, unnerved by the cavelike walls of the alternative, and with a philosophical shrug Sollux continues past the new corridor.

"One of these is probably right," he murmurs after passing several more in silence.

"Maybe the walls can tell us. Can you read these?" Karkat pauses to look at the unfamiliar symbols. "They don't even look like letters anymore."

"They're some kind of bullshit runes. AA could read them. This was probably for us to solve," he says quietly, "like some archaeological mystery or something."

"Yeah, if she was ever around." He falls silent, glancing over at Sollux. The psionic continues walking without missing a beat, expression carefully blank. "Sorry."

"Whatever," he mumbles, waving a dismissive hand.

"But you're pretty close with Feferi, right?" Karkat asks, suddenly awkward.

"That's between me and her," Sollux answers, but his lips draw back in a pointed smile. "Seriously, we're passing these hallways on both sides, we have to choose one. I don't even know how many we've missed by now."

"Since there are so many I figured there'd be some kind of indication when we hit the right one."

"I guess. And quit that," Sollux mutters, continuing on. "You think you're scaring me or something, but it's actually pretty pathetic. I feel platonically bad for you more than anything."

"What, my terrifying common sense is too much for you?" Karkat asks irritably, tapping his scythe on the wall again as he goes. “Or you mean this obvious tapping I'm doing in plain sight-”

"I'm just saying if you're going to fucking molest me in the dark, KK, you could at least touch me somewhere more interesting. Move down a little, be ambitious?" he continues sarcastically. Karkat suddenly freezes in place, eyes wide as Sollux proceeds down the hall. "Eheheh, _wow_. Right after asking about FF. Are you-" With an abrupt, incoherent noise, Karkat leaps forward and slashes at the darkness behind the psionic. The edge of his scythe cleaves something soft that lets out a shrill wail of alarm, but by the time Sollux whirls around and focuses, nothing remains but grist glimmering innocuously in the light.

"Holy shit," Karkat pants. "How long was that there? What _was_ it?"

"I-I don't know, it just started," Sollux answers haltingly, rubbing his lower back. "Oh, fuck, the hallways."

"What?" Karkat says nervously, casting about for potential things to slash as he approaches Sollux again.

"When we got here there was a wall, so we knew nothing was behind us." Sollux pauses, turning in a slow circle, and Karkat has no idea whether the spider legs now scurrying at the edge of the light are real or if the flickering motion is adrenaline-charged blood pumping in the capillaries of his own eyes.

"But we've been passing those fucking corridors the whole time," he says, shaking his head to steady himself, "so anything could be there." Sollux nods, glancing back and forth. "So can't you just do optic blasts down the halls?"

"Yeah, KK," Sollux whispers tersely as lightning flickers anxiously between his horns, "I find that really helps the structural integrity of _fucking ruins_ , and there's no way we'd get crushed to death by giant rocks. We have to keep going." He pauses, listening as he stares ahead. "I hear something. I could use throwing stars, but I can't see to get them back."

"You have to see things to move them around?" Karkat whispers skeptically. "How do you not just know?"

"That's the stupidest fucking question, KK, how am I meant I focus on shit when I don't know where it is. And how would things sneak up on-" he begins, but his sentence is cut short by something striking the back of his skull. He reels against the wall in a momentary daze, eyes rolling back and dimming as a small stone skitters across the floor.

"Holy shit!" Karkat exclaims, hacking blindly at nothing in the half-light until something strikes a scythe from his hand. "Don't fucking faint on me!" he snaps, turning around and slapping Sollux's breastbone sharply with the flat of the remaining weapon. The psionic takes in a quick, shuddering breath, flashing with light.

"I'm fi-" He stops abruptly, eyes widening as basilisks and imps retreat from the widened circle of radiance on both sides, a dark, roiling sea of goat and bull horns, scales and spider legs and stunted grub wings slipping back and melting into invisibility and sudden silence. "Or maybe I'm not."

"Shit," Karkat breathes, reaching down to pick up his other sickle. A violent, clicking chatter of crab pincers echoes through the corridor. "But they're probably pretty weak, right?"

"If there are hundreds of them and two of us in the dark," Sollux hisses, protecting his head with his curled arms in a way that Karkat would find amusing in other circumstances, "I'd say they can probably fuck our shit up on general principle. That rock hurt pretty bad." His eyes narrow slightly. "And one of them was trying to play grab-ass with me, the hell is that about?"

"Yeah, let's discuss how irresistible your hot nook is to everything in a five-mile radius instead of getting the fuck out of this hallway," Karkat whispers, glancing back and forth. Now that he knows things are watching him, the silence grows oppressive. Even the runes of the walls flicker in and out of visibility as shadowy figures pass freely in front of them. It occurs to him that the creatures must have been traveling in the middle of the passage the whole time, understanding exactly what would be visible to him, and he shudders at the thought as he tries to form a plan.

"I underestimated this," Sollux mumbles abruptly, mood shifting. "I wasn't paying attention, there must have been some other option that I fucked up and missed. I can try to fight them off," he offers, voice heavy with demoralization. For a moment, Karkat wonders if any of the imps have strife specibi with weapons that can attack from a distance; he understands with a sick certainty that not only will Sollux will be the first targeted due to the light he emits, there is no way to protect him. The unwelcome memory of Sollux lying dead in his hive, yellow blood trickling from his eyes and mouth, intrudes with a sickening rush of guilt. Karkat reflexively moves closer to the psionic.

"If we stay here until you're done with your retarded pity party they'll be all over us, dipshit. Come on," Karkat orders resolutely. "Our only option is to run for it, these side paths are monster dens. I'll just cull whatever gets in the way," he adds loudly, glaring out into the darkness. The clicking of crab claws resonates defiantly through the halls again, coupled with the sound of animalistic laughter. "Can you keep up?"

"I can fly," Sollux reminds him quietly. "I could carry you, but it's probably dangerous since we won't see shit until it's too late."

"This was designed for you," Karkat mumbles. "It can't be that easy, there are probably giclopes ahead. Just keep flying behind me and do whatever you can, I guess."

"I...yeah, I guess," Sollux agrees hesitantly, lifting slowly from the ground as monsters begin to mill and chitter fitfully in the dark. "So what, on the count of three?"

" _Now_ ," Karkat responds, taking off.


	3. Chapter 3

Initially Karkat hopes that Sollux's light will keep them away, but the moment he starts to move the monsters surge eagerly forth to meet him. "Shit," he mutters, disappointed as he dives into the first wave, slashing indiscriminately at horns and wings and thousands of scuttling legs, the air around him instantly thick with flying grist. Flickering light behind him lets him know that Sollux is fighting on the other side. For a moment Karkat is concerned, but shakes the feeling; delicate as he looks, Sollux is more than capable of protecting himself.

So many creatures pack the hall that attempting to count or differentiate them is fruitless, but as he parts the sea in a flurry of whirling scythes Karkat is pleased to see their faces twist from savage delight to desperate rage. More than a few withdraw, scuttling backward into the dark as shrill wails echo down the corridor. Waves break before him despite the claws that dig briefly through his clothes and pierce his skin, bright red soaking quickly into the black fabric of his shirt. He ignores the pain with well-practiced ease, but just as satisfaction rises in his chest, the light behind him flares violet and abruptly dims.

"Sollux?" he asks sharply. A glancing blow strikes the top of his head as he falters, claws and teeth raking his arms as he tries to turn. Karkat glances up to see an imp with a sling and several stones, melting into the darkness before him with a cackling laugh. Cursing under his breath, he carves a basilisk's head in half and throws off an imp clinging to his arm, nearly collapses under the weight of five more that tackle him in unison and are thrown off in a burst of light. Sollux neatly divides the group of monsters in half, slamming them into the walls as Karkat staggers to his feet.

"I got the ones behind us to retreat," Sollux explains, pressing the heels of his hands against his temples. Cautiously, Karkat examines himself; his shirt remains mostly intact, covering the red scratches along his arms and torso. He carefully presses the fabric over the wounds, makes sure no errant red drops display themselves.

"They're..." Karkat pauses to slaughter several dazed and stumbling monsters. "They're probably regrouping, going through the tunnels to attack us from the front."

"Let me go first so I can throw them."

"Fuck that." He waves a scythe dismissively, walking briskly forward. "One of them has a slingkind specibus. One good hit to your skull and we're fucked."

"That's true," Sollux mumbles, closing his red eye and grinding the heel of his hand against the socket. "But I'm up higher than you, it's not like you're-"

"This isn't bright enough," Karkat interrupts. Sollux opens his eye reluctantly, wincing. "What's your problem?"

"I'm not a fucking lamp, my head hurts."

"So hurry up," Karkat says irritably, kicking an imp into the wall as it emerges hissing from a side corridor. "They cut up my arms and hit me with a rock, but you don't see me bitching."

"Really. You're not bitching right this very-" Sollux abruptly falls silent as his light reflects from two thick, curved surfaces that gleam palely for an instant and move like lightning, lancing forward at angles toward each other. Karkat stares blankly for a moment at the two blue barbs in his arm before being knocked off his feet by the arachnoid giclops that barrels forward, dashing him against the wall and rushing for Sollux.

"Fuck!" Sollux gasps, shoving the monster back with an audible snap of energy, struggling to hold it in place.

"Shit," Karkat breathes, curled up against the wall, his arm numb with temporary shock. The fingers of his other hand press convulsively at the swelling around the wound. "Shit," he hisses again as clear fluid runs down the limb and a burning sensation roars through his flesh. "Oh, fuck, fucking hell, oh _god_ -" he whimpers, curling up convulsively as the shock dissipates.

"I can't throw it," Sollux grates out, passing by him as he pushes it back further. "The hall's too narrow." Glancing down for an instant with shining eyes, he frowns. "KK?"

"Aaaagh," Karkat manages, writhing.

"I...yeah, I'll kill this." Sollux settles to the ground, holding the monster back with one hand as he finds something in his sylladex. "I have throwing stars-" An encrypted card thuds heavily to the ground. "Grubfucking encryption modus!" he snarls, lightning crackling between his horns as he turns his full attention back to holding the arachnid at bay.

"U-ugh," Karkat moans, forcing himself to uncurl and crawl to the card. His hands scrabble uselessly on it as heat floods his body, forcing a wave of sweat from his pores.

"God," Sollux snaps, exasperated. He makes a tearing motion with his hand, trying to rip the sharp chelicerae from the spider's face, but the monster tosses its skull-like head to evade the force and keens in fury as it presses forward with redoubled effort. "I...ugh," he grunts, lifting the monster up to prevent it from moving. Its legs stretch out, pressing hard against the walls as it struggles on. "KK," he pants, "I can't, KK, KK, come on come on _come on_ -"

"I've got it," Karkat answers, mind floating in a disconnected fog as pain sends his limbs into quaking spasms and his heart beats frenetically. Panicked as he is, much as he wants to scream as a basilisk emerges from the other end of the hall and begins to walk lazily toward him, the venom coursing through his veins slows his racing thoughts and for an instant everything is clear. He puts the code together in a haze of half-conscious thought and, miraculously, the card pops open with a crack.

"Finally," Sollux snaps, lifting the shurikens in a halo of light and hurling them into the monster's face. The arachnoid giclops shrieks, eyes pierced by whirling blades, and kicks clawed legs viciously toward him with a hiss. "How the fuck are you alive?" He reclaims the stars from the monster's flesh, furious, crackling with lightning as he throws them again. Blue blood spatters the walls and floor as it convulses. "Fucking die already!"

"Sollux," Karkat whines, awkwardly stabbing at the basilisk with one of his scythes.

"What?" Sollux snarls, glancing back and grimacing as a clawed leg gouges his shoulder. He lifts the basilisk with a frustrated growl, hurling it past himself at the wounded spider, and as both enemies collapse into heaps of grist he sinks slowly to his knees. "I seriously fucking hate this temple," he pants as he clutches his skull, his glow dimming as he floats the throwing stars back to himself. The runes stretch on into the darkness.

"Really? I fucking hate _being poisoned_ ," Karkat pants. He relaxes his balled hands, trying to straighten himself out, shivering as his heart pounds uncontrollably.

"Yeah, but I don't see you bitching, right?" Despite his sardonic tone, Sollux crawls over to Karkat, prodding his shoulder. "I'm probably fucked if you die here. Don't do that."

"Well, shit," Karkat snarls, "there go all my plans for the evening, devastated by your glorious blaze of compassion. Asshole." Sollux frowns, settling beside him, protecting his own head with his arms.

"Is there something you want me to do?" With a quick wave of one hand, he shatters another basilisk against the wall as it wriggles into the circumference of the light.

"What do you do when you get poisoned?" Karkat asks, shuddering as he forces himself into a sitting position against the wall.

"FF takes care of me. It wears off pretty fast. She's actually immune to it."

"What does she do to fix it?"

"She just stays with me," he mumbles evasively. Karkat straightens up further with an effort, concentrating on his heartbeat as he breathes. His chest burns and the area around the bite throbs with pain, but he clenches and unclenches his hand and is certain he can hold a weapon.

"Well, that was really comforting. Great. Thanks." He struggles to his feet, wavering as his heart palpitates with the exertion. "Hurry up."

"Do you want me to hold your hand?" Sollux asks dryly, standing up. "Or stroke your hair a little, or maybe suck the venom out..."

"Touch me and I'll have your fucking hands," Karkat mutters, brandishing his scythes.

"Yeah, you'll have them all over you." Sollux attempts a grin despite his exhaustion, walking alongside Karkat this time. "Guess I don't have to fly anymore, at least. Do you see that light?"

"What? Wait, yeah." Karkat squints. "Something's shining. I can't tell how far away."

"Good, I thought I was hallucinating." Sollux grimaces as monsters boil into the circle of light again, chittering. He parts the creatures with an audible snap of electricity, bashing them against the stone, but by the way his shoulders slump afterward Karkat can tell that for all his showing off his strength is nearly gone. A thin stream of blood pulses down his arm from the gouge left by the spider's leg. "You were right," he sighs as more emerge from an adjoining corridor. "It's an ambush."

"Of course I'm fucking right," Karkat retorts, slower than before as he plies his sickles, his heart pounding erratically. "It's a good sign." An ogre stomps audibly closer in the dark, finally emerging in a charge with bull horns leveled toward him. "We're-" He ducks beneath the horns and reaches up to bury a scythe in its stomach, letting it carve itself open- "at the end, probably." He staggers slightly as the heat rushes through his body again, but the final wave of monsters suddenly falls back. Sollux passes by him, progressing in a shimmering, crackling halo.

"Good," he mumbles as he psionically shoves the mass back down the adjoining corridor, standing to face them. "Can you reach the end?" He slumps back against the wall, eyes flickering.

"I can still run," Karkat says grimly.

"Eheheh, good," Sollux breathes, arms spasming as he tries vainly to lift and throw the monsters. "I'll hold them."

"Except oh wait, nobody fucking asked you to die," Karkat snaps with an impatient shove.

"I'll fly after you in a minute." He grins crookedly, the lightning between his horns dim and intermittent as it arcs and wavers. "Like I'm going to die for _you_ , what a stupid waste. What kind of troll would I be-"

"A horrible one," Karkat retorts, seizing one of his bony arms, "which I already know you are, revoltingly sensitive and a _shitty liar_ -" Sollux lets out a strangled noise as Karkat nearly pulls him off his feet, rushing down the corridor into blackness- "just awful in every way, fucking unbelievable-"

"What the fuck!" he snarls, barely able to keep up as his light flickers and goes out.

"Hideous mutated freak," Karkat spits, fueled by panic to a surprising speed as skittering legs echo behind him and the runes around him blur together. The jewel of light grows more and more as he feels Sollux collapse a little with every jarring step, as his own knees begin to give out. "Just giving up," he pants, "like you try to do every fifteen minutes, dumbfuck, what would I tell Feferi-"

"I would have been fine-" Sollux snaps, but Karkat jerks his arm sharply and shoves him forward into a small, dead-end, beehive-shaped chamber. He sprawls gracelessly into the blue light of the room, stunned and exhausted.

"You would have been fucking dead and it would be my fault," Karkat grates out, trying futilely to push a stone door closed to block the corridor. Sollux stares in a detached haze as monsters begin to flood the room. "Again," he adds bitterly as he leaves the heavy slab to fight the intruders.

"No," Sollux mumbles, motionless on the floor. "It's my fault this time." He guides the door closed despite the overwhelming pain in his head, crushing a scaly, shambling ogre with the stone as Karkat destroys the remaining intruders.

"There," Karkat snaps, promptly collapsing as his knees give out. "Look at that, what an astonishing miracle, I took care of everything. And who died? Oh that's right, no one, least of all a certain self-defeating grubfucker who doesn't think I can handle shit like this, fuck you very much." He looks to the side, scowling darkly, but Sollux lies inert and unresponsive on the stone. Large crystals on the ceiling emit a bluish light as Karkat crawls to him. He presses two fingers to the pale throat and is rewarded with a wiry pulse fluttering beneath the skin, quick and regular.

"Good," he tells the unconscious psionic, "because if you just up and fucking died right after I saved you, you have no idea how incredibly pissed I would be. I'd flip my shit so remarkably high it'd be stuck to the ceiling and just drip relentlessly down on us from above and that would be fucking disgusting, so..." He frowns at the oozing yellow wound on Sollux's shoulder. "I'm glad you're alive."


	4. Chapter 4

"FF?" Sollux asks as a hand closes on his uninjured shoulder, pulling him back into consciousness. His eyes flicker open, glowing dimly. "Oh, right."

"The first time," Karkat mutters, "fine, I get that. This time, fuck you. Unless I threw you down on your freak skull and you have amnesia now, in which case sure. Why not. I'm FF." Sollux stares at him, too tired to be hostile. "Glub glub," Karkat adds with unnecessary viciousness, captchaloguing his computer. "I'm so _excited_ to be stuck in this deathtrap!"

"Was I out long?" Sollux asks, sitting up and pushing his glasses back to the bridge of his nose. "Did you just wake up?"

"I didn't sleep," Karkat says carelessly. "There's a door above us, I'm keeping watch. Besides, I was checking on Terezi and basically everyone else, because - believe it or not! - your useless ass isn't the only thing I have to look out for."

"Are they okay?" Sollux cranes his neck to look at his injured shoulder, glad to see the bleeding has stopped. He gazes up at the ceiling, at the hexagonal aperture blocked by stone and surrounded by luminescent crystals. "Good to know you're scoping out my ass, by the way," he mumbles gamely, attempting to sound spirited. "Thanks for the warning."

"I'm checking out a fucking cavalcade of asses," Karkat informs him, "just a regular fucking ass parade and I'm the poor nooksucker who has to make sure everything's up to code so there's not a devastating assalanche in which millions perish. And no ass would be left," he declaims, "to give a single solitary shit-"

"Seriously, are you going to stop while my headache is at least sort of under control again?"

"No, because your agony should be at least as unending as mine for putting me through this shit. I'm obviously discharging some grotesque quantity of sin I've accumulated over the sweeps, but I can't fathom what I did in such a limited time to deserve you-"

"I get it, you feel better now," he sighs. "That spider didn't drop anything."

"I know, so this is obviously the room you use to get ready for the actual boss fight. Which is why, in my infinite benevolence, I let you sleep for a while even though you're wasting my time. I'm also over being poisoned. Which fucking sucked by the way, thanks for all your unending tender compassion."

"You solved a good half of our problems by hitting and shoving me around," Sollux points out. "While insulting me. So maybe you could shut the glub up for two seconds and get over yourself." He shuffles through his sylladex, locating a card and decrypting it to reveal another heap of throwing stars. "Let's go." He grins abruptly, levitating. "Oh yeah. Looks like I chose the right path, by the way, so you can just suck it."

"Wow," Karkat snipes, his voice taking on a wavering and uncertain quality as Sollux levitates him in a halo of brilliant red. "That's amazing, you can actually tell how you feel at any given moment. I can only dream of such shocking feats. But oh wait, perhaps I too can achieve this skill! What could this be, what am I feeling _right now_ -"

"I know," Sollux interrupts, shifting the stone above out of the way with a loud, grating roar as he floats up to the aperture. "Pure admiration, because I'm fucking incredible. Shut up, let's go."

"Oh right, they're okay," Karkat says abruptly as he ascends into the vertical passage beside Sollux. He tries to ignore the sickening drop in his stomach and focuses on the stone door, slid sideways into a channel carved in the rock. "It sounds like they're having fun."

"FF and TZ?" Sollux asks, staring straight up to cast his light ahead.

"Yeah. Terezi was fine with it, like I figured. Feferi said she fishes you," he adds, "and she'll see you soon. I think she also called you Sealux, but I stopped paying attention because I don't speak fucking glub."

"Fish puns are the language of glub, KK," Sollux remarks dryly, grinning. "Or so I eel." Karkat stares at him in momentary disbelief.

"Anyway," he continues a moment later with a disgusted shake of his head, "they're going to do some alchemizing and then come here. I also left out the part about how you were going to fucking kill yourself."

"I would have been fine," Sollux murmurs distractedly as the upward corridor ends in a large chamber. "So here we are." He floats into it, turning slowly in the air to look around.

"I don't see anything," Karkat states, regarding the empty room as Sollux sets him down. Stone platforms of varying heights jut from the floor in all directions, the walls covered with the same carved runes and glowing crystals. "This room's fucking huge though. I can barely see the ceiling."

"Oh, over there." Sollux points at a long, segmented leg that abruptly juts up from the far side of a tall platform. "It's..." He trails off, frowning as a monster crawls to the top. "It's the same thing we already fought in the hallway. That's stupid."

"No, there are more of them time." Karkat glances around, watching them climb up on the platforms in all directions. "Six, but since we can see this time it won't be hard."

"Right." With a casual gesture, Sollux sends several throwing stars into the face of one from a distance, grinning at its keening wail before flinging it into a wall. It explodes instantly, raining grist. "Five. This _is_ easy," he continues, floating into the air as two more encroach on him. Karkat can only grunt in response as he engages one of the two attacking him, parrying the sharp chelicerae before slicing them cleanly from its mouth.

"If I get poisoned again," he says matter-of-factly, leaping astride the spider as it reflexively bows down to protect its injured face, "I'll be seriously pissed." He turns around, leaning forward to bury his sickles in two of its eyes, hooking the blades back into its head and clutching tight as the monster rears up.

"Makes sense-" Sollux flies sharply to the left, evading a small stone. "What the hell," he mumbles, spotting a brief flicker of motion as an imp dodges behind a platform.

"What?" Karkat asks, yanking back again on both sickles as the other spider attempts to attack his legs.

"Fucking imp tried to hit me with a rock. Again." Sollux glances warily at the platform as he sends a shuriken through two of his opponent's left legs, staying out of range of its attacks as it cants to the side. "How is it even up here?"

"How should I know?" Karkat snaps ill-temperedly, riding the spider down a corridor between platforms as another follows in pursuit. "I can't get off this thing. Do something."

"I'm kind of busy." Annoyed, Sollux hurls the injured spider into the other one, frowning as both scuttle to their feet. "These are harder to kill," he observes, removing the remainder of its legs with several more throwing stars. The weapons skitter behind platforms and irretrievably out of sight as the monster dissolves. "Four. And you're slow."

"Shut up." Karkat pilots his spider by jerking on the left scythe, leading it around the corners to his original location before cutting through a leg and burying his scythe deep in the back of the head as the monster leans down. It dissolves into grist just as he leaps from its back to engage the other, parrying venom-dripping chelicerae with both sickles, nearly unable to withstand the sudden force behind its attacks. "Three."

"Damn," Sollux mumbles as his remaining opponent barrels forward, breaking his hold on it with unexpected strength. "Oh shit, KK!"

"Wha-" Karkat begins before the spider collides with him, knocking him down and propelling his body into the side of a platform, digging bleeding gashes in his sides with the claws at the ends of its legs. "What the fuck!" he pants furiously, pressing his shirt down over the wounds.

"It got away," Sollux explains anxiously, regaining his hold on the hissing monster and pulling it back. "You're not poisoned?"

"No," he snaps, climbing back to his feet to engage his own enemy again as it rushes him, blue light reflecting from its fangs and eyes. "Do they get stronger over time or something?"

"Don't know," Sollux mumbles, concentrating on lifting and throwing his remaining opponent down on the corner of a stone platform. Blue blood spatters the floor as it climbs back to its feet, several legs hanging useless on its left side and part of its abdomen caved in, but just as he grins in satisfaction it arches back and shoots clear fluid from its mouth.

"There," Karkat pants as his sickles finally send the spider's fangs clattering across the floor. He dodges quickly beneath its face, sliding along the stone to carve its abdomen open from beneath. "Two. Now who's slow-" he begins smugly as it dissolves, but his eyes widen abruptly as a raspy cry splits the air. "Sollux?" he asks, turning to see the psionic descend to the floor.

"I'm fine, it doesn't hurt," he gasps, shuddering as clear liquid runs down his unprotected arms. He wipes it from his throat and face with shaking hands, wipes his hands on his jeans as he lands on the floor. The injured spider drags itself toward him, leaving a blue smear of blood and releasing a constant, sputtering hiss as more clear fluid drips from its mouthparts. "Fucking hate this temple," he breathes, summoning his concentration enough to marshal his few remaining weapons. He throws them one by one through its thorax until none are left.

"I think they get stronger every time one dies," Karkat notes, approaching from behind to slice open the caved-in side of the abdomen. "One," he says smugly as it dissolves. "Three to two."

"I did all the work on that one," Sollux snarls irritably, looking around for throwing stars to gather. "It's not like-" He pauses, scratching at his arms.

"What?"

"Itches," he mumbles, luminescing to take flight again. "Let's look for the last one."

"I'll look over th-" Karkat begins as he walks purposefully to the left, but Sollux lifts him into the air and his words cut off in an awkward squawk. "God," he snarls, "fucking warn me when you're picking me up!"

"I'm picking you up," Sollux informs him. "So hey, KK, are your legs tired?" he asks in a passably suave tone, smirking. "Because you've been running through this fucking temple all night." He pauses for a moment, surveying the room. "See, the joke is that-"

"Over there," Karkat interrupts, pointing at a lumpy black shape scurrying between the platforms further ahead. It moves with uncanny, impossible speed for its size, uninjured and enraged. "Also, shut up."

"Sorry for trying to lighten the mood." Sollux frowns, scratching his arms harder, shifting uncomfortably. "I'll kill it from the air." He levitates the shurikens he can still see, casting them one by one as the spider scurries with surprising haste behind platforms. One carves a narrow slash into a hairy leg, drawing a faint hiss, but the majority clatter and dent against stone.

"Except you suck at aiming," Karkat helpfully informs him, sitting cross-legged in the air and catching his breath.

"It's fast, dipshit." Flying tentatively forward, he surrounds it in shifting light and begins the process of lifting it when a stone slams into his shoulder from behind, whirling him around in the air. "Fuck," he snarls as the wound tears open again, the itchy sensation of blood welling hot and coursing slowly down his arm. He searches the room in a rage, lightning arcing and tangling between his horns, and sees nothing but platforms behind him.

"What happened?" Karkat asks, frowning at the sudden smell of ozone in the air.

"Fucking imp," he breathes, teeth bared as he clutches his head. "Fucking rocks, fucking spiders, _goddamn fucking temple_!" A nearby platform dismantles itself as he crackles with rage, stones skidding across the floor and crashing into other platforms.

"You're so fucking dramatic." Karkat rolls his eyes, gesturing with his sickles toward the remaining spider. "Let's just do a fraymotif, it's not like we're saving our strength anymore."

"What?" Sollux shakes his head, still snarling, but his shoulders relax and his hands lower to his sides. "I...really? Which one?" he asks, distracted by the prospect, mood swinging slowly back to neutral.

"What are you good at?" Karkat asks in a level voice, pacifying him.

"Apoptosis," he murmurs, scratching his neck. His fury dissipates as quickly as it built, although he continues to glance around.

"I'm okay at Exsanguination, so let's do that one." Sollux nods absently, pulling him through the air toward the spider. "Are you even paying attention? What do you keep scratching for?"

"Exsanguine Apoptosis, I heard you. Are you actually set? We have to land to concentrate on synchronizing this."

"Oh right," Karkat snipes defensively, "thanks, I'd forgotten how these work." Rolling his eyes, Sollux lands neatly on his feet, already radiating violet light.

"Come on," he urges as the monster begins to rush forward, closing the distance in the corridor with unnerving speed. Ignoring it, Karkat scowls and closes his eyes, focusing on the presence of blood. He feels his own, pulsing through his arteries and coagulating in the wounds on his sides, and senses the naturally slower heartbeat of Sollux beside him. The rushing creature has far more blood than either of them, pounding furiously through its veins. Karkat reaches out and pulls at the liquid with easy familiarity before drawing it out with a violent jerk.

"Fucking right," Sollux murmurs, watching blue blood erupt from its mouth and eyes. Its life energy wanes as it begins to hemorrhage, its steps slowing and faltering even before he releases his power to wreak massive cell death. Its legs shrivel and rot beneath it as he pulls the life from them, its body diminishing as internal bleeding speeds up the process of cellular decay. Grinning, he hurries it along even after the threat has gone, glancing over to see Karkat doing the same.

"Fucking right," Karkat agrees, expression more angry than delighted as the monster dissolves completely, withered body too frail to move. "Zero."

"That was actually pretty cool," Sollux admits, visibly brightening. "It didn't have a chance."

"But where's the fucking drop?" Irritated, Karkat kicks a piece of grist, further annoyed when his touch harvests it rather than sending it flying into a platform.

"Shit, you're right, we were meant to get a crystal ball. Maybe the battle is glitched-" Sollux begins hesitantly before his body abruptly jerks, collapsing unceremoniously to the stone. Momentarily shocked, Karkat stares at his crumpled form before glancing up to see a familiar imp in the corridor, twirling a sling and grinning.

"Fucking hell!" Karkat snaps, reflexively hurling a scythe before the advent of conscious thought. The imp, preparing to abscond again, explodes as the blade buries itself solidly in its head. A crystalline orb clinks to the ground where it stood; Karkat halts, staring at it in a momentary lack of comprehension. " _You_ ," he finally growls, hand tightening on the remaining scythe. He stands motionless for a moment, gritting his teeth and resisting the urge to kick something, before harvesting the orb and picking up his sickle.

Captchaloguing the drop and his weapons, he inspects Sollux; the psionic breathes steadily, the wound on his shoulder oozing sluggishly. Karkat runs careful fingers over the rising lump on his head, lifts his eyelid to reveal solid blue. "You don't have pupils," he tells Sollux informatively. "Serious medical condition. Mostly because if you have a concussion I have no fucking clue." He examines the thin arms, eyebrows lowering as he notices pale yellow mottling along the limbs and up Sollux's neck, irritated skin marked with the deeper yellow welts of his scratching. "And you said it didn't hurt. Liar," he mumbles, hooking his arms beneath Sollux's and dragging him laboriously toward a black aperture in the far wall, pausing only to switch out his own ragged, tattered clothing for a fresh set from his sylladex and to make certain no blood is visible. "Let's get you out of here."

* * *

Consciousness returns slowly to Sollux, partly because of exhaustion and partly because he knows, even through the haze, that waking up is going to bring a whole new dimension to the throbbing pain in the back of his skull. "KK?" he finally asks, raising his eyelids gingerly, surprised when light lances into his eyes. The pain instantly worsens. "Goddamn it, KK," he moans faintly, closing his eyes again.

"Not quite!" Feferi answers brightly, pouring water carefully over a cloth folded on his bare chest. "Hold still, gilly, you had a chemical burn. It wasn't serious yet, but it would have been pretty glubbing bad if I weren't here!"

"FF...oh," he sighs gratefully as the water soaks through the fabric, bringing tingling coolness to the itchy skin. Smiling, she dampens cloths spread over his arms and neck.

"We made compresses for it," she explains. "And we cleaned up that cut on your shoulder."

"Thanks," he says, not opening his eyes. "We?"

"All of us!" she answers cheerfully. "Sounds like that level was harder than we thought. It must have been scaly."

"No," he murmurs. "An imp hit me in the head with a rock, though."

"I heard you got a pretty good conch to the head!" A cool hand glides along his forehead and he lets his eyes open again, gazing up at her as his mouth curves up in a faint smile. "It left this," she says wryly, holding up the orb.

"Are you fu - glubbing serious?" he asks, smile replaced by a snarl. "So I didn't have to kill all those spiders, I-" He winces, forcing himself to relax as pain shoots down his neck. "Did KK leave already?"

"You'd just love that, wouldn't you?" a harsh voice cuts in. Sollux closes his eyes again as Karkat strides to him, sitting down on the brain matter, scowling. "You can't wait to get rid of me. Even though I dragged you out of that shithole and got the fucking drop, which means I won, by the way. So screw your retarded little contest, _who's slow now_ -"

"Karcrab stayed to help watch you!" Feferi interrupts diplomatically.

"That might be the worst goddamn pun I've ever heard in all my tortured sweeps of life-"

"And Searezi got extra water-"

"Oh fuck, an even worse one!" Karkat snaps, throwing up his hands as Terezi's raspy laughter cuts through the proceedings. "You've outdone yourself." Feferi regards him levelly, grinning.

"Thanks!" she states, her voice completely serious. Karkat gapes at her for a moment before falling silent with a scowl. Sollux smiles at that and at the harsh laugh from Terezi that follows, tensing his body in preparation to rise. "Anyway, you should be eeling better soon."

"I eel better already," he says, forcing himself up. Karkat shoves him back, planting a hand in the center of the compress on his chest to hold him down.

"Fucking liar."

"You still smell like mustard," Terezi informs him before sneezing. "Icky, icky mustard," she adds, "and this land smells absolutely disgusting. Blar. Hot brains."

"So obviously," Karkat proclaims, "we need to get the fuck out of brainland before she sneezes herself blind. Enjoy your stupid crystal orb."

"I'm already blind, Karkles," Terezi states authoritatively. "But I can't smell a damn thing." She turns, whacking Karkat solidly in the shins with the end of her cane. "Is something there?" she asks, grinning broadly as he hisses, following him as he hurries away.

"See you later!" Feferi adds, waving enthusiastically.

"You..." Karkat casts a look over his shoulder at Sollux, already sitting up again and looking at him. The psionic half-smiles as they make eye contact, raising a hand to wave. "Bye," Karkat calls back, grimacing as his leg receives another suspiciously accurate drubbing.

"Whoops!" Terezi cavalierly proclaims, doing it again. "Maybe if you were leading me in my time of need this wouldn't be happening." Scowling, he reaches out to grasp her hand, ignoring the fact that she continues to walk beside him without being led. "So did you have fun?" she asks, squeezing his fingers with casual familiarity.

"I don't even want to talk about it," Karkat states disgustedly, rolling his eyes. "Guy's an asshole. So what did you find?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of these days I should write the companion piece I always intended where Terezi informs Feferi about her clever plan to get a short break from Karkat by tricking him into thinking he couldn't go into a dungeon with her "and he actually believed it." Afterward, Terezi and Feferi go through the entire dungeon in a fine spirit of cooperation, have a fantastic time playing jokes on the imps, loot the shit out of a bunch of chests, and emerge completely unscathed because they're not dysfunctional in the slightest.


End file.
